Bucking The Logged-In Trend; YouTube's Many Strengths

Whereas Google and Facebook are focused on the logged-in user as the cornerstone of ad growth, Twitter may be going the opposite direction. “It’s our goal to reach the largest daily audience in the world, which means we can’t just focus on a logged-in experience which has historically been the company’s focus,” CFO Anthony Noto said in a conversation at Citi’s 2014 Global Technology Conference. SeekingAlpha transcript, where there’s more on tailored timelines, email notifications and self-serve ads. The audience strategy is partly fueled by sports, music and news partnership, as VP Global Media Katie Jacobs Stanton says in a separate Re/code interview. “Ultimately the goal is to reach every person on the planet.” Read that.

Killer YouTube

YouTube has built strength upon strength, Jefferies analyst Brian Pitz declared in a research note and conference call on Google’s video money-maker. The reasons are many: strong advertising products, upfront deals with agencies (including separate $100M contracts with Publicis and IPG), and audience verification from traditional TV players. And, TrueView is a “killer” video ad format in the era of performance-driven ad metrics. Pitz writes, “The skippable format enhances the user experience while ensuring advertisers only pay up to show ads to users that opt-in (plus they get free 5 seconds of branding to boot).” More.

Programmatic MasterCard

Late last week at a MasterCard monthly salon in NYC, media chief Ben Jankowski touched on some remaining hurdles to programmatic, among them the issue of transparency. But the biggest challenge is unpacking how agencies and platforms should manage and adapt to the programmatic ecosystem. A lot of big brands are "waiting for people to figure this out," he said. “People spend way less time with it than they should." Programmatic: everywhere you want to be. MediaPost has more.

Gif Ad Tech

EA Sports is using a Google-designed ad tool to promote its Madden football game with custom gifs based on real NFL game play. "We're piloting ad delivery technology that allows brands like EA Sports to be part of [the] moment and after something happens on the field that brand can be out there on message with an ad," Mike Glaser, marketing manager of creative projects at Google, told Adweek. It remains to be seen if baiting one-liners can build social media audience. More.

Brewers Without Borders

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the 22nd-largest ad spender in the US, is officially outsourcing its media buying, Ad Age reported on Friday. "After this thorough process, we concluded to partner with a media agency to lead our connection strategy, media planning and buying," VP-marketing Jorn Socquet said in a statement. "This decision will guarantee that Anheuser-Busch will stay at the head of industry with innovative and breakthrough connection planning in a vastly changing media landscape." If you can’t beat the digital competition, hire them! Read it.